Howdy, howdy, folks.

For many years (ten now, about which, more soon) McMansion Hell has featured many prominent and diverse atrocities from all over these great United States and sometimes beyond them. However, most of these posts have consisted of houses built during the McMansion Era proper -- from the 80s up through around the early 2010s.

This is for a number of reasons. First of all: I like these houses because they are insane. Second of all, they are indeed quite different from one another -- they represent the owner's idiosyncratic if poorly rendered desires and fantasies. They are heavily psychologically loaded buildings. One family dreams endlessly of Tuscany, another wants to recreate the mall. All interiorize previously exterior forms of consumption.

These houses were also very expensive to build compared to their contemporary iterations: all real, solid wood cabinetry and trim, wrought iron railings, marble floors, elaborate murals - none of this is cheap. This is not to say that I'm nostalgic for the classical McMansion (though many are) only that it, like, most other facets of architectural and everyday life, have become progressively cheaper and more bland.

The McMansion never truly goes away. It merely changes shape over time. One of the shapes it currently takes is a particularly loathsome imitation of contemporary high architecture (specifically the kind of houses architects love to build for celebrities in California) executed in the most wretchedly parsimonious manner possible. It feels cheap to use the word 'slop' but their indiscriminate nature - the way they have no regard for why or how the things they imitate even work - allows it. Of all the building forms that could be generated with AI, this is the most likely. At any rate, behold:

Yes this is a real house. Yes you can buy it for $6 million in, yet again, Barrington, IL. It has 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms totaling 11,600 square feet. But most importantly, it looks like dogshit, and that's with ten layers of Photoshop have been used to gussy it up which, by the way, also makes it appear entirely not of this world. Were it not for the photos of the empty interiors, I myself would have trouble trusting my own eyes. Part of the reason it looks so unreal is because the design itself is absurd, as though someone created four equally ugly vessels and threw them up one by one.

In 2017, in a now-deleted essay for Curbed (RIP - they destroyed the archive) I called these types of houses McModerns, simply because they were McMansions dressed up in modernist garb, which they wore no differently than they would Neo-Tudor or Mediterranean (broadly construed.) These houses don't warrant a new neologism, but they do feel like a degraded or perhaps even gonzo version of even that old concept. Slop works fine too, especially because half of what's in these images isn't real.

Much fascinates me about these houses, however one of the most unique elements vis a vis the last 30 years of building is how overtly and almost hostilely masculine they are. Anything that can be construed as feminized - color, softness, ornament - has been ruthlessly purged. They also rip off tech industry minimalism which only ads to their bro-ey nature. While previous iterations of McModernism (think new builds in Colorado with fake wood exteriors) scream dads with IPAs, these houses scream Reddit to me. They are Elon Musk-adjacent in sentiment.

By the way, this is what that room looks like without the fake furniture. It's basically a sunroom.

Whole Foods would like to call in a robbery.

Because these houses are designed by men, for men, no one involved has learned how a kitchen works. Many are calling this setup the "grindset tiktok video kitchen." This is the kitchen you see in those day in the life of an AI startup founder videos your algorithm forces you to watch against your will.

Virtual staging is actual literal slop. In fact, one can say that it was an early harbinger of the ontological crisis we now face, one of the first instances where one is forced against one's will to question reality, what one sees with one's own eyes. Beyond that, I think virtual staging is literally a form of lying. You can use it to make a space look bigger or smaller than it is. In this -- lying to impress -- it also has a lot in common with AI. This dining room has nothing to do with the world I'm living in. These chairs are not my problem.

It's actually AMAZING how much of what's in this house, beyond the furniture, is fake. Every single material is fake. The stone is aluminum paneling. The plants are plastic. The concrete is printed on some kind of surface (as evidenced through its repetitive pattern), though it's hard to say from just pictures. I don't even trust the floors!!

Ok if you haven't read Kelly Pendergrast's amazing essay "Merchandizing the Void" about how houses are all like stores now, HERE IS THE LINK. Some ideas never die, they just evolve, king. Like you.

Please, I'm very cold.

Unfortunately there are no pictures of the rear exterior of this house, so this is where we will have to conclude for today. That being said, these houses and their antecedents are developing a design language all their own that will, in time, be as culturally rich to us as the houses of yore. The problem is they are less visually interesting. They are houses made to scroll in and scroll right by. Expect to see more of them here, but only if they have something, anything to say.

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including a discord server, extra posts, and livestreams. (Don’t worry! This doesn’t adjust for inflation! Now’s the perfect time to join!) By the way: new subscribers can buy a year of McMansion Hell for just $12!

"Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old running for Congress in Illinois’ 9th congressional district, isn’t shy about her belief that politicians need to do things differently.

“We have a representation problem,” the first line of the “About” page on her website reads.

“As in, about half of Congress are millionaires and people born before the Moon landing. And that's part of the reason we're in this mess: Our leaders are out of touch.”

A journalist, social media influencer, and political commentator that GQ called “a lefty,” with a mission to revitalize the Democratic party, Abughazaleh built a following online before she launched her campaign in March of 2025. 

But now, she’s leveraging her platform — and campaign dollars — to help people in her community before ballots are even filled in.

“My congressional campaign is feeding people right now,” she starts in a recent TikTok video. 

“Part of the reason I decided to run was because I saw how much money gets wasted in politics, and I thought, ‘What if we spent it differently?’”

She adds that the campaign is focused on “direct action and mutual aid,” emphasizing that she wanted her run for office to be “dual-purpose,” in which she can get her message out and help people in the process. 

It’s a stark pivot from the traditional way of campaigning in the United States, which often includes pricey fundraising galas, attack ads, big billboards, and perhaps the most criticized and unpopular feature: massive donations from private businesses and interest groups. 

Abughazaleh has publicly congratulated the former incumbent of this seat — 80-year-old Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who has held the title since 1999, the year Abughazaleh was born — for her “decades of service.” 

Rep. Schakowsky will not seek reelection, but Abughazaleh called for others to run, hoping to participate in the “first competitive Democratic primary in the District since 1998.”

Abughazaleh has also shared that the average donation her campaign receives is $31. And according to GQ, 1,000 people signed up to volunteer for her campaign within a week of her initial announcement.

And while that volunteering does include marketing, canvassing, and getting the word out, it mostly adds up to actual on-the-ground volunteer work to help people in the local community.

“Our kick-off event, for instance, didn’t charge $500 a plate,” Abughazaleh shared in her TikTok. “People just had to bring a box of pads or tampons, which were donated to Chicago’s period collective. By the end of the night, we had gathered over 5,600 period products, which went to people who can’t afford them.”

Most recently, the campaign hosted a food drive for a local community fridge program.

“We asked folks to come out and donate food in exchange for a campaign yard or window sign,” Abughazaleh said. “And by the end of the day, we were able to fully stock the empty pantry and fill the fridge with frozen meals, produce, and eggs. That’s feeding people right now.”

“Don’t worry, we checked to make sure this is legal," she added. "And it is."

The campaign has also launched a High School Public Serve Grant program that encourages local youth to submit ideas for how to make the community better, and Abughazaleh’s campaign will support it with money, materials, volunteers, and her online platform...

“Something you’ll rarely see is concrete help in their communities during the campaign,” she said. “And frankly, to me, that just seems stupid. Not only do you get to help people — supposedly what you’re running to do — but it also shows what you’re about, instead of just providing lip service.” ...

“If every campaign adopted this model, then we wouldn’t be wasting money every single cycle. Every city, town, and village across America would be improved by their election process, and I think it would also get people more involved,” she said.

“We have local folks who have never voted in an election, but they joined our volunteer Discord server because they want to help, they feel like they have something to vote for.”

For those who might be inspired enough to run for office with this model, she says: Full steam ahead.

“Frankly, I would love it if other campaigns took our model. Use it, pretend it’s yours, I don’t care!” she wrapped up her TikTok. 

“Pair with organizations in your community that have been doing the work, talk with local experts, and try to spearhead any initiatives you can to show your values and help your constituents. It’s really that easy.”

A herd of 6 American bison—3 males and 3 females—have been released onto native Illinois prairie. There, to the sound of drumming, songs, and cheers, they began to acclimate to their new surroundings—surroundings that had missed them for 200 years. A large crowd of Santee Sioux, herded together in their woven blankets and synthetic down jackets, had arrived at sunrise on Burlington Prairie Forest Preserve in Kane County, 60 miles northwest of Chicago, to witness something of a homecoming. “It’s different when you’re welcoming them back home. That’s their home, not mine,” tribal elder Robert Wapahi told CBS News Chicago. The 6 animals were released from a large trailer into a cattle enclosure to allow them to get used to the idea of the frozen prairie again, and come the spring, they’ll be moved onto a larger area, still fenced, where it’s anticipated they will improve native grasslands. “It’s really important and awesome to see another herd that is hitting the ground in a good way,” one man said at the event, where drummers sang a song as the trailer arrived. The American Indian Center, the oldest urban Native American cultural establishment in the United States, will look after the animals in partnership with Kane County Forests Persevere staff, and a designated herd manager. The reduction in bison from 35 million to several thousand had a profound effect on the North American prairie even without the conversion of so much of it to farmland. Bison engineer grassland ecosystems with much the same impact as beavers on a stream. The millions of hooves stamped the grasslands flat, preventing any one species from over colonizing an area. Their wooly coats acted as an excellent seed dispersal vehicle. Their dung helped fertilized the plains and their digging of wallowing pits increased the landscape’s ability to resist drought and retain water. In bits and pieces, fits and starts, bison are being reintroduced to native prairie when it can be found, and though 6 is a far cry from 35 million, all good things have to start somewhere. Judging by the smiles and the cheers of the Santee Sioux—when the shaggy beasts rumbled out of the trailer—this is a very, very good thing.

Excerpt from this story from Northern Public Radio:

Next year, “rewilding” will officially be a part of the conservation approach in Illinois.

A new state law explicitly includes the concept as part of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources’ strategy. It’s the first time a U.S. state has included rewilding in its legislation, people working in conservation said.

The goal of rewilding is to reintroduce native species and restore whole ecosystems. Advocates often describe it as helping nature help itself, or putting nature back in the driver’s seat.

Cynthia Kenner is the executive director of Prairie State Conservation Coalition in Illinois. She said the new law formalizes the work happening in the state already.

“It's allowing the continuation of practices that are already in place, but it brings more meaning to really letting nature come back,” she said.

An example of rewilding is occurring in the northern part of the state in Rockford, where the Severson Dells Nature Center is working to transform a former golf course into 170 acres of prairie, forest and wetland habitats. The area will serve as a wildlife corridor as well, allowing species to pass through to other nature preserves in the area.

Rewilding often focuses on repairing habitat suited for apex predators like mountain lions and keystone species like beavers and bison. The idea is when these species can succeed, other species will start to recover around them, said Jason Kahn, board president of the Rewilding Institute, which supports large-scale conservation projects across North America.

Perhaps the most well-known example is the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s. In South Dakota, black-footed ferrets have been reintroduced to Badlands National Park, and bison are roaming prairies in Illinois and Iowa. These keystone species have helped to recover native habitats in the area.

“It doesn't cost a lot of money,” Kahn said. “Nature knows how to take care of itself. If we stop insulting and abusing it, all you would need to do for something is to let it grow, let it mature and let it be. And the wildlife will find a way in.”

Rewilding isn’t just about restoring large swaths of the landscape away from humans, said Cathy McMullen, a faculty member in the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management at Iowa State University. She said one of the most meaningful approaches to rewilding can take place on your block.

“There's a buy-in for everybody, say, in a neighborhood,” she said. “You plant a pollinator patch, and you maintain that pollinator patch, and if you scale that up to a whole neighborhood, no one person gets overwhelmed by all the work. Everybody's doing their piece. In the process, they’re going to learn some bugs and birds and make a connection to nature.”

“This bill adds rewilding as a strategy that the agency can implement,” she said. “They are also already doing many of these practices, and they already have the ability to consult with their ecologists, the biologists and the folks that make these decisions for the state to add species to the landscape.... This doesn't give them any new authority.”